No matter what indicator you look at, the housing market is improving. New and existing home sales are rising. So are home prices. Even foreclosures are declining. In the latest housing data release, the National Association of Home Builders Wednesday reported that the housing recovery has spread to 70% of the 361 metro markets tracked by an NAHB/First American index compared to just 3% in September 2011.
Fannie Mae, the government-sponsored enterprise which buys and packages mortgages into securities for investors, says its own survey of consumers shows increasing optimism about the housing market, and the broader economy………………………………………..Full Article: Source

The US housing market is continuing its steady recovery, with experts predicting another year of continued growth and a long-awaited increase in demand. Last month, the US Census Bureau announced that an estimated 780,000 housing units were started in 2012, a 28% jump from 2011. And permits were authorised for 813,400 housing units last year — nearly a third up on 2011 — meaning more construction is on the way.
That growth is partly thanks to a big boost in multifamily housing. Multifamily production has risen 273% since its low point in 2009, according to the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB)………………………………………..Full Article: Source

Banks are fearful that the Eurozone will collapse – hence, they are selling out their real estate. Morgan Stanley says that credit organizations have accumulated real estate to the tune of 600 billion euros.
The main buyers of these accounts are big investment funds and private persons. These investors are sure that cheap European real estate will be able to ensure high profitability in the future………………………………………..Full Article: Source

Despite growing demand for residential properties in Europe, the market is currently too fragmented to become a major institutional asset class in the near future. That was one of the key conclusions of a panel discussion on residential investment during the ULI Europe annual conference in Paris this week.
‘Europe offers significant investment opportunities,’ noted Michael Ball, professor of Urban & Property Economics, Henley Business School. ‘Demand is expanding and many European cities face long-term acute housing shortages. But I don’t see a pan-European market developing across markets taking advantage of opportunities for scale.’……………………………………….Full Article: Source

U.K. house prices rose in January as strains in the mortgage market eased and funding costs fell, Acadametrics Ltd. said. The average price of a home in England and Wales increased 0.2 percent to 227,478 pounds ($357,300), Acadametrics and LSL Property Services Plc said in a monthly report published in London today. From a year earlier, values gained 3.1 percent.
The Bank of England’s Funding for Lending Scheme has shown “encouraging signs,” though it’s still early days to gauge its success, Governor-designate Mark Carney said……………………………………….Full Article: Source

House prices are increasing at their fastest rate since early 2010, fuelled by the Government’s £80billion attempt to kick-start the economy, the Halifax said. The Funding For Lending Scheme has been failing to get money to its key target – cash-strapped small businesses – but it is managing to cut interest rates on mortgages and make them more easily available.
For homeowners, a rise in prices is a cause for celebration, but it is another blow for first-time buyers trying to get on to the property ladder………………………………………..Full Article: Source

Official figures reflect a large increase in renting has Britons locked out of home ownership amid the tough economy. The level of homeownership has fallen to its lowest level since 1987, government figures showed today.
The vast majority of households are home owners, making up 14.39 million, but at 65.3 per cent of households this is the lowest proportion recorded since the height of the popularity of Margaret Thatcher’s “right to buy policy”, when council tenants were encouraged to buy their homes at a discount………………………………………..Full Article: Source

Houses in London’s 10 most expensive boroughs are now worth as much as the property markets of Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland combined, underlining the extent of Britain’s growing wealth divide.
London houses have traditionally fetched higher prices than those elsewhere in the country. However, the financial crisis has triggered a rapid polarization of the market, with property values falling in every region of the U.K. other than the capital………………………………………..Full Article: Source

The Germany property sector has been able to seize opportunities from the Eurozone crisis, and may well emerge as a major driver of the economy this year, says the German Council of Property Experts in its latest annual report this week.
“It is the property sector that carries economic hopes with it,” said Council member Lars Feld at the introduction of the Council’s Spring Report at the Quo Vadis real estate conference in Berlin………………………………………..Full Article: Source

For the past three years, Spain’s property market has been going relentlessly backwards, with prices falling for 36 months in a row. But it’s now showing the first signs of recovery after five years of pain. So is it a good time to find your very own place in the sun?
Northern Europeans have been keenly hunting homes across the Spanish mainland and islands since the 1960s. Rich Brits, Germans and Scandinavians bought bargain villas and apartments in order to take advantage of the famed sun, sand and sangria………………………………………..Full Article: Source

Portugal’s Institute of Tourism is all set to launch a new programme that is effectively anticipated to increase resort property sales in the country. Real estate activity in Portugal has been significantly low compared to the period about seven years ago when the market was at its peak.
Citizens of Non-EU countries are targeted as the Iberian nation hopes to gather funds and get itself out of the economic mess. According to reports in Controlinveste, a Portuguese real estate newspaper, the southern region of Portugal is home to several resort properties. Algarve and Madeira, in particular, have some truly beautiful properties that are now available for considerably discounted prices………………………………………..Full Article: Source

New figures from the Land Registry suggest that there may be trouble ahead for the Cypriot property market. While low real estate prices in the country are enabling a greater number of foreign investors to buy a home in Cyprus, transaction volumes are actually falling. The Land Registry claims that 2013 could see an all-time low for property sales, which were down 53 per cent in January from the same time in 2012.
However, it may be premature to go into panic mode, as figures for January 2012 were arguably skewed, thanks to a rush to deposit contracts of sale in a bid to benefit from the reduction in Property Transfer Fees. What’s more, while the country is struggling to recover from the end of the housing boom that halted in 2008, there are signs that the sector is on the brink of a resurgence………………………………………..Full Article: Source

National Housing Bank (NHB), the regulator for housing finance companies, today said there has been price correction in the housing market and it is likely to continue in some pockets, including the NCR region.
“There has been softening of prices in the housing market in some cities including NCR region. This trend may continue for some time,” NHB Chairman and Managing Director R V Verma said after releasing Report on Trend and Progress of Housing in India for 2012. In the national capital region (NCR), he said, price correction has happened due to over supply. Some more correction may take place in the coming days. He, however, said it is difficult to predict by how much prices could correct………………………………………..Full Article: Source

China is beginning to show renewed growth. The country is driving stimulus spending and easy monetary policy to get its economy back on track and drive consumers to spend.
And while there was talk of an asset bubble in China’s housing market, I’d say that the short-term risk is high, but there’s also excellent long-term growth potential in the housing market………………………………………..Full Article: Source

Government measures to regulate the property market get tougher with each move, but market reaction has grown calmer and calmer. The corrections in property prices get smaller and smaller too as they last shorter periods.
Some in the market consider the Buyer’s Stamp Duty and Special Stamp Duty to be heavy-handed, but the Centa-City Index that reflects property prices dropped slightly from the 116.8 high in November to 114.3, a correction of 2percent, and that lasted for only four weeks………………………………………..Full Article: Source

Property transactions in Taiwan are expected to warm up and recover after the number of housing transactions fell to its lowest annual level in 2012 since 2003, according to local brokers. “Although it experienced a low last year, we expect a steadily warming housing market amid the improving economy,” said Liu Yi-jong, an executive at Taiwan Realty Co.
According to government data, just 329,741 properties in Taiwan changed hands last year, down 8.84 percent from a year earlier, marking the lowest level since 2003………………………………………..Full Article: Source

The lack of investment capital and gloomy domestic market have brought golden opportunities to foreign investors to buy real estate projects for knock-down prices.Park City in Ha Dong district in Hanoi, Splendora in Hoai Duc district and AIC urban area in Me Linh are the three out of tens of real estate projects Vietnamese developers have transferred to foreign investors.
The involved parties in the transfer deals declined to reveal the value of the projects, but the sums of money Vietnamese developers got from the deals were much lower than the money they had to pay to obtain the right to develop the projects………………………………………..Full Article: Source

Both the new and used housing sectors in New Zealand are experiencing and active time with the latest figures showing strong growth. The seasonally adjusted number of consents for new properties, including apartments, increased 9.4% in December 2012, the data from Statistics New Zealand shows.
Statistics manager Blair Cardno said that since the latest sector low point in March 2011, a clear trend has emerged showing an increase in new houses, both including and excluding apartments………………………………………..Full Article: Source